Latest Gear Live Videos

If you've been shopping for a laptop lately, you may have a vague idea that "ultrabook" means "lightweight" and "small" but otherwise you may be a little confused about why some laptops are called ultrabooks and others aren't. It's understandable – this is one of those areas where names sort of caught on and many different manufacturers started using it, often with different ideas about what it meant. Here are the major points that define an ultrabook, and more importantly the top ultrabooks, and why they matter if you are getting ready to buy a computer.

Advertisement

The sun will set on 2015 in just a few hours, and we are just in time with our annual top 10 list of the most-watched Gear Live video episodes. Over the past year, as expected, there was a bunch of Apple gear that made the list, with the release of the 4th generation Apple TV and Apple Watch. The launch of the Seagate Game Drive for Xbox was big with our viewers as well, appearing in our top 10 twice! Other items, like the New Nintendo 3DS XL, Alienware Steam Machine, and Toyota Entune platform also proved popular as well.

Oh, and if you wanna be sure to get our new video episodes as they come out in 2015, be sure to subscribe to us (free!) on YouTube, or in iTunes.

This is an entry from our 2015 Holiday Gift Guide. Check it out for suggestions on what to buy your loved, liked, and hated ones this holiday season!

Microsoft has a bunch of solid deals on Xbox One bundles this year, and we think the Gears of War bundle provides the most value for the dollar making it our pick in our 2015 Holiday Gift Guide. Buying an Xbox One also nets you access to the large back catalogue of Xbox 360 backwards compatible games as well, making it an even better upgrade for Xbox 360 owners.

The bundle includes an Xbox One with 500GB storage, full-game digital download of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, newly updated Xbox One black wireless controller with a 3.5mm headset jack so you can plug in any compatible headset, 14-day trial of Xbox Live Gold, AC Power Cable, and an HDMI Cable. You also get access to the Xbox 360 Gears of War collection if you play the game before the end of the year!

Oh, and if you wanna splurge on this one, skip the Gears of War bundle and go for the Xbox One Elite bundle instead.

This is an entry from our 2015 Holiday Gift Guide. Check it out for suggestions on what to buy your loved, liked, and hated ones this holiday season!

The Xbox One Elite Wireless Controller is the hard-to-get gamer gift this season, earning a spot in our 2015 Holiday Gift Guide. This thing offers pro-level precision, a bevy of swappable thumbsticks and D-pads, and add-on rear paddles that can be used to duplicate or remap from buttons. Hair trigger locks let you fire faster, and the rubberized diamond grip provides a more secure and comfortable experience when using it. The components and build quality of this one are top-notch, and any Xbox One gamer in your life would love it, guaranteed.

This is an entry from our 2015 Holiday Gift Guide. Check it out for suggestions on what to buy your loved, liked, and hated ones this holiday season!

Microsoft’s Surface 3 with AT&T LTE is a 10.8-inch Windows 10 tablet that can be converted into a laptop. For the road warriors out there, it packs in an LTE modem, which allows you to connect to AT&T wireless cell signals when on the go. Paired with the 10-hours of battery life, you have a capable Windows machine that’s easy to carry. It includes 1-year of Office 365 Personal with purchase.

Want the best deal on the Surface 3 with LTE? Grab it direct from AT&T. You’ll get a $100 discount with a 2-year commitment, or if you bundle it with a smartphone on an AT&T Next plan, you get a $200 discount, bringing the price down to $399.99!

If you're into tech (and if you're reading Gear Live, then it's safe to say that you are,) you'll want to check out Best Buy this Saturday afternoon. Coming to select Best Buy stores will be the Best Buy Special Holiday Shopping Event - yep, the holiday shopping season is being kicked off at Best Buy in a majoy way. In fact, this is Best Buy's biggest shopping event of the year. It all goes down on Saturday, November 7th. What can you expect? Read on!

Parallels, the company that makes Parallels Desktop (our favorite software virtualization software for Mac,) has announced the release of Parallels Desktop 11. Interested users can buy Parallels Desktop 11 for $79.99, while users of prior versions 9 and 10 receive upgrade pricing of $49.99. Major operating system support in Parallels Desktop 11 includes support for the latest Microsoft OS, Windows 10, as well as Apple’s upcoming OS X 10.11 El Capitan, which is set to launch this fall.

Microsoft is set to release the remastered Gears of War: Ultimate Edition on Xbox One in just over a week, and today the launch trailer was released, bringing back the Mad World title track that was used years ago with the original. You can watch the trailer after the break, which includes all new in-game footage that shows just how great Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is going to look once it hits Xbox One consoles. The original Mad World trailer is recognized as one of the most memorable video game trailers of all time, due to its use of emotion to convey the heavy situation that the Gears would be facing.

Sling TV, the service that streams live TV to customers, has launched on Xbox One this morning, making it the first game console to provide access to Sling TV subscribers. The Xbox One joins Roku and Fire TV devices, Android, iOS, Macs, and PCs in providing Sling TV support.

“Sling TV and Xbox are a natural pairing; two out of three millennials think of themselves as gamers, while nearly nine out of 10 watch live sports on TV,” said Roger Lynch, CEO of Sling TV. “Today’s Xbox One customers have been some of the most passionate about Sling TV since the beginning, and now we’re pleased to bring them live TV on their favorite gaming console.”

Specific Xbox One features for Sling TV include the ability to use Kinect gestures and voice commands to control the app, and the ability to Snap Sling TV besides other activities. Current Xbox One owners who download the app will receive one month of Sling TV for free. If you buy an Xbox One between March 17 and March 25, 2015, you'll get three free months of Sling TV service to try out.

In addition to the Xbox One news, Dish Network's streaming television service is also announcing a bunch of new channels that are now available to subscribers. Sling TV is adding A&E, History, H2 and Lifetime to the $20 core live TV package, and is also expanding its $5 extra channel packs, adding Lifestyle Extra (with TruTV, the Cooking Channel, DIY and WE TV) and World News Extra (with Bloomberg TV, Euro News, France 24, NDTV 24/7, News 18 and Russia Today).

If you're looking to start running that fresh MicrosoftWindows 10 Technical Preview on your Mac, Parallels has you covered. The company has announced experimental support in Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac that will now allow you to install and run the early look at the Windows 10 operating system, alongside the Office Preview for Windows 10. Microsoft is doing some impressive things with Windows 10, and with Parallels you can get a look at things like Cortana, Windows Store beta, the reimagined Start menu, and more. You just need to be running Parallels 10.1.4 build 28883 or later and you're good to go!